Eternity
by Dancewithknives
Summary: Overwatch: Lena takes a second to contemplate mortality.


Eternity  
Written by: Dancewithknives

Description: Tracer takes a second to contemplate mortality.

"Will the circle be unbroken?  
By and by, by and by  
Is a better home a-waiting  
In the sky, oh, in the sky?"

8:35:39  
Dr. Ziegler exited her office. Her sandals snapped at her heels with every step, foreshadowing her approach down the hall to the male research staff to find busy-work for themselves as she passed. The only hint of the one-piece swimsuit that she wore were the heavy elastic straps on her shoulders and the long cut down the side of her bright yellow sun dress, showing the smooth, snow-white legs peeking out with every step.

She walked down the halls to an awaiting open elevator, dark brown sunglasses and yellow cloth visor on her temple, a little too much for the indoors of the barracks, but just enough for the sun of the bright Spanish coastline.

She entered the elevator and used her free hand to select the ground floor. She waited, control panel processing the command before slowly closing the stainless steel doors.

From down the hall a voice called out, "Oi, wait for me! Hold the door!"

She reacted, but the closest hand to the panel was occupied, holding a large beach bag full of supplies for the day. She tried to react, but by the time she could properly process on how to reach the open button, the doors were sealed and elevator in motion.

She shrugged her shoulders to herself. "Oh well."

She stood in the elevator, looking at her own pale reflection in the door, smiling with the prediction of how much healthier she would look after a nice day-off in the sun, melting the snow of her complexion and making way for a healthier, sun-kissed, look.

Remembering something, she patted the outside of the beach bag, feeling around for a package within. After no success hitting it from the outside, she opened up the top and looked inside, searching for the white cloth or the red cross sewn into the sides of the satchel.

She cursed herself. She must have left it on her desk. The one thing she had to grab from her office.

The doors opened, and standing before her in the lobby outside was Lena Oxton, the slim English girl holding a small radio and beach towel in her arms while her fists were clenched on her hips. She wore a yellow bikini and trunks that looked to be from the same athletic-line that she bought most of her clothes from. The swimsuit was underneath her bulky Chronal Accelerator while a large oversized t-shirt with a stretched neck covered the portable nuclear reactor, its bright blue fusion window glowing through the stitching.

"You could have held the door, you know?"

"Sorry," Mercy shrugged, "My hands were full."

Tracer rolled her eyes and began to walk with her across the lobby towards the indoor car parking lot. Mid stride, Angela stopped and said, "Lena, I forgot my medical bag. Would you be a dear and run upstairs and get it for me? I think I left it on my desk. I'll take your things and get the car ready."

"Your medical bag? Do you really think that's necessary?"

"Don't you remember Reyes, Morrison, and Reinhardt's game of ultimate Frisbee last year? I was surprised any of them survived."

Lena grimaced, remembering the scene to be less a friendly game of catch and more a reenactment of the Invasion of Normandy. "Good point." She emptied the contents of her arms into the doctor's beach bag and gave Angela a salute. "Be back in a sec!"

Angela turned, considering if the statement was hyperbole or literal before continuing to her car. Hopefully she remembered to pack enough extra aspirin in the event that the Lieutenant decided to wear his Speedo like he had last year.

Literally one second later, Angela felt extra weight being added to her bag and a heavy presence wrap around her chest and push up against her from behind.

She turned, and sure enough Tracer was behind her, embracing her from behind and rubbing her cheek into the nape of her neck. Before the doctor could react, she noticed something was off. Why was Lena fully dressed all of a sudden?

8:39:12

* * *

Lena was sitting in a dark room, an open window shined the morning sun's rays in and illuminated the dormitory's sole occupant on the bed. Before her was her good friend Winston, lying on his back with his big bulbous belly sticking up and pulling most of her sheets away with him.

His great maw, showing pearly white fangs, was outstretched, mid yawn as he slept the morning hours away.

She smiled at the doctor that had remedied her Chronological maladies, doing absolutely everything he could -inventing a new field of science in the process- to allow her to have a somewhat normal life. She raised her wrist, checking the large analog watch full of all sorts of different instruments on it before she stood up in the shadows.

She wanted to reach out and touch him, to scratch him behind the ears just the way he liked it, the way that she would treat him only when she was sure nobody was looking, but as she reached her hand out, she repulsed it away.

She could still see the callus and bald spot from the first, and last, time she had done that.

She returned to the window, climbing through it and mounting on the ladder outside. Before she climbed down, she blew the big ape a good night kiss.

* * *

Emile always looked so cute when she was stressed out.

There was something about the way that she was just on the precipice of defeat, just about to give up, the way that she would nervously comb her fingers through her bangs, as she contemplated the things that were currently wrong with her life that Lena just found simply irresistible.

Lena sat at an open quadrant of her desk, a small space just big enough to fit her posterior was surrounded by hefty stacks of paper on all sides. Emile was sitting at the office chair manning the helm of the desk, taking in the morning crisis that was waiting for her as she walked in to work.

Lena scanned across the desk, finding a familiar framed photograph in its usual spot and took in its image. It was them, off on vacation together. Emile looked lovely in a dress while Lena did the best she could, but still had to contend with the bulky machine on her chest.

Emile would have to save herself on this morning. But when they were together, Lena loved to be her lifeline, to see what was wrong in her love's world and make it better, to pull her back to salvation just as she was thinking things were getting grim.

Sadly, now wasn't the time for that. She was busy, and there was nothing Lena could do about it.

She stood up from her spot and walked to the front of the desk, looking at her girlfriend sitting with her back to the morning sun shining through great glass windows behind her.

Silently, Lena waved goodbye and showed herself out.

* * *

Lena walked across what looked to be a glass mirror, above and below her was nothing but the sky. One was the cloudy heavens above, white puffs of vapor spotting the infinite beyond for as far as the eye could see. Below were the depths of the abyss, the watery grave for far too many to count. She walked the razors edge of the mirror, on the brink between both horizons.

She looked over her shoulder as she walked, the treads of her sneakers making only the faintest of indentations on the water's surface. What she saw beyond the reflected horizon was the sun, casting the final warm glows of a dying flame, sending the last of its orange light over the land and sea. In turn, the ocean met its offer, and gave off a perfect reflection of the guest in it's still waters.

Lena stopped, turning to take in the scene and remember the moment, the perfect marriage of sea and sky, perfect and sacred all except for her and her shadow, smudging the surface of the prism.

She checked her watch and continued walking into the great beyond.

* * *

Lena stood in a largely blank, clean room. The tile floor was shined and spotless, the walls all an eggshell white. The facility that she stood was spotless in aesthetic, a conscious effort so that the building didn't take away any attention from its residents.

Lena found herself visiting one such tenet of the house, a portal directly into a time long ago, captured in a single moment. She stood, hand supporting and rubbing her chin while her free arm wrapped around her elbow and waist, amid deep contemplation. She took in the watercolors, studied the canvas, and surveyed the people within, all enjoying a simple Sunday afternoon in the park. Girls and ladies, young men and boys, all leisurely enjoying different parts of the scenery, the sun, the river, the grass. Small dogs ran around embracing the freedom of the grass, enjoying the confined wilderness surrounded by the prison of streets and buildings. All frozen in a moment in time, a casual Sunday afternoon in the park.

It gave her a strange feeling, like that of an unwanted guest, a harsh sense of reality that turned insult to injury. She pondered the emotion, dissected it, contemplated its separate parts and how it made her feel and tried to memorize it for her own creations.

When satisfied with late 19th century piece, she checked her watch, quietly turning to leave the chamber.

* * *

Lena found herself in a sea of gold. She walked, parting her ways across the field towards a bright red barn off in the distance. The wheat, amid full bloom, surrounded her for as far as she could see. The warm yellow sun displayed the bright golden head and healthy green stalks of the wheat in the field, but it wasn't meant to be for much longer. The plant was at the apex of its life, full beautiful pods blooming in the wind, but a predator was in their midst, reaping their lives just as they fully began.

Off in the distance, just a speck on the horizon, was a green combine, barreling through the blonde hair of the earth and slicing it away, bringing it one step closer to its final place of either being pulverized into dust, or woven into bread, either way to be consumed by both man and beast.

But the plant did not rebel, the stalks enjoyed the gentle embrace of the wind and love of the sun for as long as they could, oblivious to the dismembered suffering of their kin and foreshadowing of their fate.

Lena continued on through the land of the condemned as they savored what time they had left, making a single line throughout the vast field. Eventually, she did make her way to the house and found what she was looking for.

The honored guest of the farm, the pet among the beast of burden, a small patch of land tended to by the wife on hands and knees while the man reaped his crop with metal and diesel.

She surveyed the plants, taking in the colors, blossoms of red, sprouts of blue, flowers of yellow, and thorns of green. She had no idea what she had to choose from, but she picked a healthy assortment of colors and plucked them from the dirt, wrapping her choices in an old discarded newspaper.

Checking to see how much time she had, she viewed her wrist and nodded to the mistress of the plantation, giving silent thanks before going on her own way.

* * *

Martha Tully Oxton was found enjoying a sunny pasture in the presence of her peers. Lena approached, cradling her homemade bouquet in her arms. She set the tribute down, leaving as an offering to the etched stone that marked her mother's final resting place.

Done, she stood and removed her goggles, holding them in her hands as she clasped them at her waist and bowed her head in silence.

The last time they had seen each other, Lena had left for the opportunity of a lifetime, her changing attitude, purpose in life, and rehabilitated direction to live had aimed her skyward, and she had just been given the opportunity to go on the adventure she simply could not refuse.

A lifetime…

Lena was lost to time, fading in and out of reality inside a time-chamber, a freak accident inflicting a wound that no one had even considered possible. By the time she could wear the quantum anchor that held her in one place, it had been too late; Mother had left her behind.

At first she said that she didn't have the time to go visit, her life had begun to go so fast after she finally returned to the present, but now she had nothing but time.  
She thought of the time they had, the time gone by, and the time they lost. The things she said, the things she regret saying, and the things that she had wanted to say.

She took as long as she needed and the old woman listened the best that she could. When she was satisfied, she raised her head once more. Strapping the goggles back on, she kissed the stone and left, checking her watch as she exited the cemetery.

* * *

Lena opened her eyes, the ceiling that she stared at clouded in darkness, the same shroud of black that had wished her a good rest when she closed her eyes.

She sat up, folding the blanket over and swinging her legs aside, feet landing beside her discarded shoes that she left beside the couch.

She raised her wrist and inspected her large, bulky watch, and at the bottom of the display was a small digital readout, displaying the words, "Chronal exhaust venting: %18".

She cupped her bare hands to her face and rubbed her eyes, raking her digits through her hair in frustration of what she was in, what she had gone through, and what she still had to overcome.

She sat up from the couch and walked around, looking for something to occupy her mind, but settling on taking a seat in a stuffy old armchair.

This house was now her residence. She had inherited it, not by law or birthright, but by circumstance. The previous owner had likewise been the victim of loneliness, so it was only fitting that she moved in when he couldn't take it anymore.

She raised her wrist once more and checked the time on the main analog clock, hoping that she had been mistaken when she awoke, but as the biggest hands that occupied the timepiece had not moved from when she had first realized what had happened. Although it had felt like days had gone by, the clock remained the same.  
8:39:11

Lena sat in the dark, the only light being supplied at the moment coming from the blue reactor on her chest. There was no use turning the lights on, it would be ages until the bulbs lit up or a candle burned to life.

It was fitting punishment that an extrovert be imprisoned to a sentence of solitude, living in a world where everyone was frozen around her. She had tried her very best, around the home were tomes of paper books, romance novels to fill the void, science fiction to stimulate her mind, tragedies to help her forget the hell that she was living in, and comedies to give her the laughs that she desperately needed. She even tried to keep up with her comrades in her own special way. Copies of An introduction to Advanced Robotics by Torbjorn Lindholm, The Marriage of Machine and Man by Dr. Angela Ziegler, and It came from the Moon: The Autobiography of a Space Ape by Winston T. Gorilla were all a part of her vast book collection.

But them, like all others, had been opened and closed by this time.

Apart from the books lying around, collapsible easels and canvas, pen and paper, drawing pencils and sketch books were littered around the home. Time, patience, and practice had trained Lena's mind and sharpened her skills. Early attempts at scribbling on paper had resulted in the pencil shattering and the paper sparking into flames from built-up friction. Her first attempts at painting resulted in canvas bursting into a splattering of water colors across the canvas.

The room was a timeline of progress, misshapen bodies and smudged shading became sharper, cleaner. Fields of flowers bloomed, mountains rose from the sea. A graceful ballerina bowed to her audience, eyes closed as she danced to the phantoms of her mind, an angel descended into the depths of hell and carried a child from the maw of the abyss, returning them to the gift of life, and her favorite, a gorilla sat on a stump, hand resting on his chin as he observed the strange creatures milling around outside of his safe observation cage.

When she no longer could create, she would explore. Many lists were pinned on the refrigerator. Two sets of handwriting covered the paper, one of a woman, and one of a little girl. The top was labeled, "All the places I want to go when I grow up. By Fareeha Amari and Lena Oxton"

But it had been too long, Lena had spent a lifetime alone wandering the world and seeing the wonders within. She didn't want to be alone anymore. She felt the feeling that she had on the first time this happened, the first time the Accelerator needed to vent the pent up Chronal energy. The time when she sobbed frozen tears at her mother's grave, when she shouted with all her might through silent lungs for someone to notice her, when she had just wanted to feel the embrace of another, but whoever she touch's skin would bruise and burn, blistering on contact. When she realized that even the great ocean itself refused to embrace her.

She had tried to relieve herself of the torment before. Like the home that she inhabited, the owner had left her a well maintained and polished nickel 1911, a relic from a conflict long since forgotten. Chambered within were the six bullets that he had left for her, the six that he didn't need.

She had been brought to the point of no return once, the dark place that she shared with no one, where she sat in the owner's favorite chair with tears streaming down her eyes, stuffed the cold barrel into her mouth, cocked the hammer back, pulled the trigger and waited for the release that only a .45 caliber Auto Colt Pistol could give.

But it never came. Lena was left there thinking of what she had just did and pulled the trigger once more, and nothing happened. Realizing of what she had just tried to do, she threw the gun across the room and curled up into a ball, disgusted with herself.

As she later learned, the gun wasn't at fault, she was. The spent casing on the floor and hole in the wall had proved that.

The time of crying and pitying herself was gone. Now, solemn and silent, Lena unzipped the collar of her jacket and reached in. She fished out a small tin capsule attached to a cold grey chain. With one twist, she opened the container and a small pill was revealed inside.

If she were to do this, it was going to be for herself. No one would understand the torment that she had gone through, no words that she could write or ideas that she could think up could properly justify this course of action besides her own self interests. She had thought on it long and hard and had accepted that there would be no way to justify it, rationalize it, or blame it on anyone else besides herself. The sole person that this almond tainted savior would ever benefit was her.

Lena popped the small pill out of the capsule and held it between her finger and her thumb. In the cold moonlight of a dead man's cabin, she thought long and hard on what she did next.

* * *

8:39:12

Angela knew of Lena's…Interests, but the sudden embrace, cheek rubbing against her neck, and squeeze to her chest seemed a bit too upfront, even for someone as bombastic as Lena. Mercy waited for a moment as the English girl slowly loosened her arms around the doctor. Angela looked down and saw the medical satchel now added to the contents of the beach bag, but was still curious as to what was going on. Slowly, she freed herself from Lena's hug and turned around.

Lena stood, strangely enough wearing her normal everyday attire, but nonetheless with a big jovial smile across her lips. In a chipper tone, she said, "It's so good to see you again!"

Behind her sunglasses Angela raised an eyebrow, "Lena… what are you talking about? Its seriously been a second."

Still smiling, but lip trembling in a slight way, Lena said, "Well… Its just that, for me its…"

The doctor noticed her unease, and through her tinted orange goggles it looked like her eyes were beginning to water, "Lena, is something wrong?"

"No," she insisted, lifting the frame and wiping her eyes, "its just that, for me its been, well…"

An Eternity

"May your hands always be busy,  
May your feet always be swift,  
May you have a strong foundation  
When the winds of changes shift.  
May your heart always be joyful,  
May your song always be sung,  
May you stay forever young,  
May you stay forever young"


End file.
